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Charlie O'Donnell
Charles John "Charlie" O'Donnell (August 12, 1932 - November 1, 2010) was the longtime announcer on Wheel of Fortune. He stayed with the show from 1974-80, leaving it in wake of the show's announced-then-retracted cancellation. Jack Clark announced the majority of episodes until he died in July 1988, when M. G. Kelly took over. Charlie, meanwhile, announced The $25,000/$100,000 Pyramid, The Joker's Wild, Tic-Tac-Dough, American Bandstand, the late-1980s Newlywed Game, the 1990s To Tell the Truth, Press Your Luck, and various other shows. He returned to Wheel on February 20, 1989, remaining there until shortly before his death. He also did announcing work on Merv Griffin's brief 1990 adaptation of Monopoly, hosted by former Jeopardy! contestant Mike Reilly. O'Donnell had several trademarks to his announcing style, most notably by drawing out the word "Wheel" when introducing the show, and starting in the early 2000s, drawing out the word "thousand" whenever someone won cash in the Bonus Round. Charlie appeared on-camera several times in the show's history, the earliest known instance being as Santa Claus on Christmas Day 1978 (an episode which also had appearances by Jo Ann Pflug and Chuck's daughter Melissa). Charlie also appeared on a 1994 episode where his name was the answer to the Speed-Up puzzle, the ceremonial 3,000th episode (where he was shown on-camera while announcing Pat and Vanna), and many Christmas Week episodes in the late 2000s. O'Donnell also did announcing work on various video game versions of Wheel plus the CD-i version of Jeopardy! His last Wheel game was the 2010 Wii version, released the day after his death. Death Johnny Gilbert of Jeopardy! filled in for November 1-15, having apparently been brought in as a last-minute replacement. Beginning on November 22, five different guest announcers filled in for the rest of Season 28 – Lora Cain, Joe Cipriano, John Cramer, Rich Fields, and Jim Thornton; Jim was chosen as the new permanent announcer in June 2011. At the time of Charlie's death, he had recorded another eight weeks that had not yet aired (November 8, 22, and 29; December 20 and 27; January 3; February 7; and March 28); despite this and the tribute on November 5, he was dubbed over with guest announcers on all the aforementioned episodes. The show claims that it was "a tough decision, but it would have been too sad to hear Charlie's voice so close to his death". Despite a similar approach with the Summer 2011 reruns, using Jim to dub over the other tryouts, Charlie's announcing remained intact on all repeats from the first two months of the season. However, the replacement promotional plugs and SPIN IDs were recorded by two different female announcers. On July 30, 2011, Charlie's friends and family gathered at Sony to celebrate his life and longevity; this included a lengthy tribute video produced by Wheel director Mark Corwin and narrated by Randy West which contained a great many clips from Charlie's 50+ years in the business. It is not known just what the tribute contained, however, as it has not been released to the public. Category:People Category:Announcers